rawing-rooms, and passing by the doors
of various mysterious chambers which were carefully curtained off in
a most secret manner. Here and there he saw groups of people--men in
extraordinary coats and with touzled masses of hair, women in gowns made
of the cheapest materials and cut in the most impossible fashions. Some
wore convolvulus on their heads, ivy-leaves, trailing fuchsia, or sprigs
of plants known only to suburban haberdashers; others appeared boldly
in caps of the pork-pie order, adorned with cherry-coloured streamers,
clumps of feathers that had never seen a bird, bunches of shining
fruits, or coins that looked as if they had just emerged from the
seclusion of the poor-box. Thread gloves abounded, and were mostly in
what saleswomen call "the loud shades"--bright scarlet, marigold yellow,
grass green or acute magenta. Mittens, too, were visible covered with
cabalistic inscriptions in glittering beadwork. Not a few gentlewomen,
like Madame, trod in elastic-sided boots, and one small but intrepid
lady carried herself boldly in a cotton skirt topped with a tartan
blouse "carried out" in vermilion and sulphur colour, over which
was carelessly adjusted a macintosh cape partially trimmed with
distressed-looking swansdown. Here and there might be seen some smart
London woman, perfectly dressed and glancing with amused amazement
at the new fashions about her; here and there a well set-up man, with
normal hair and a tie that would not have terrified Piccadilly. But
for the most part Mrs. Bridgeman's guests were not quite usual in
appearance, and, indeed, were such as the Prophet had never gazed upon
before.

Presently the uproar of the guitars grew more stentorian upon his ear,
and, leaving on his left an astonishing chamber that contained from a
dozen to fifteen small round tables, with nothing whatever upon them,
the Prophet emerged into an inner hall where, in quite a grove of shrubs
hung with fairy lights, twenty young ladies, dressed from top to toe in
scarlet, and each wearing a large golden medal, were being as Spanish
as if they had not been paid for it, while twelve more whacked castanets
and shook bells with a frenzy that was worth an excellent salary, the
silly gentleman from Tooting the while blowing furiously upon his flute,
and combining this intemperate indulgence with an occasional assault
upon a cottage piano that stood immediately before him, or a wave of
the baton that asserted his right to the posi